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The Only Son (1936), a Japanese film
America has no exclusive claim to the American Dream as many cultures encourage their children to advance socially and economically through education and hard work. Many parents the world over also willingly sacrifice to help their children achieve this goal.
The "world over" includes prewar Japan as seen in the early classic, The Only Son, from noted director Yasujirō Ozu. A widowed mother, now a poor factory worker in a remote village, does nothing but work to give her child an education so that he can become a success in Tokyo.
She's a Japanese version of the clichéd Depression-Era American mother scrubbing floors at night to send her child to college. Usually, these stories end with the child triumphantly heading off to college or a dissolve to the future where he or she has achieved that greater glory.
In Ozu's prewar Japan, a third option unfolds: the boy heads off to college and great glory, but then, dissolving to many years later, he's married with a baby boy, teaching night school, and living in a run-down suburb of Tokyo when his mother surprises him with a visit.
No explanation is given for why there was no contact in between (Japan had a mail service), but the mother didn't know her son was, one, married; two, that he had a baby boy; and, three, that he had a poor-paying, low-level teaching position.
Being Japan, nothing is said at first as everyone just bows and acts politely on the surface. The son and daughter-in-law strain to pay for a few modest day trips to show his mother the city, but it is very awkward as the unsaid is straining at the bit.
Eventually, in small moments and almost one-off comments, most of the truth and true feelings surface over the course of her several-day stay, but this is no American movie where everyone yells, screams, cries, throws a few things, and then it's all over.
Here, the verbal blows land almost in silence, where a wince or a stifled cry is the biggest response, and then all goes on as before: "You fell way short of expectations and it makes me feel like my entire life's sacrifice was pointless.... What's for supper?"
There's a very well done payoff that is perfectly aligned with modern-day morals, but you'll of course want to see it fresh. Know that it's so beautifully understated that it washes over you slowly – there's no American "ah-hah" moment in an Ozu picture.
That is both the style and the beauty of the director's work. He captures the deep moments, emotions, and feelings in relationships by quietly showing life unfold in its day to day while now and then firing a sniper shot of honesty that rocks everyone back underneath their placid surface.
He does all this with a camera, often positioned at or near ground level and looking up or across, which gives his movies an intimate feel aligned with his slow storytelling approach and his desire to capture normal life as it's lived, not just the emotionally powerful moments.
In The Only Son, the family will be sitting in the parlor of the son's miserable little rented house making idle conversation and then the son, out of nowhere, will apologize for being a failure, or not telling his mother about her grandson, or about only being a night-school teacher.
The mother will almost always respond kindly at first, "Oh, I'm happy for you as you married well," but two scenes later she'll mention that she's surprised he is living as he does. It's like a low-key Kabuki Theater playing out in day-to-day life but in an equally moving way.
Ozu also uses mise en scène as effectively as almost any director. The son's house is set in the poor outskirts of Tokyo that looks like every failing factory town. The house itself is small, grimy, and surrounded by clothing hanging out to dry. Even the clean clothes look dirty.
None of this would work if the actors – Shin'ichi Himori plays the son and Chōko Lida, the mother – weren't incredibly effective at showing emotions through tiny nuances, passing facial expressions, and minute body language. It's method acting dialed down to one.
Himori seems less upset about failing than he is about his mother having to see that he's failing. She seems less upset that he's failed, than that he isn't doing anything about it. It's no Hallmark moment; it's a "get out there and work hard to change your life if you don't like it" moment.
The Only Son is an emotionally moving picture with timeless truths about families that requires a modern viewer to be willing to accept a picture on its terms and, for a non-Japanese viewer, to embrace a culture from a different time and place.
The reward is a powerful experience, similar to opening a time capsule and catching a glimpse of prewar Japan. The cultural surprise is that under the different clothing, customs, food, and locations, it's basically the familiar American Dream but with prewar Japanese characteristics.
